Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Anderson had appearances on The Situation Room, the Town Hall on Race and CNNi's simulcast during the Midnight ET hour. He also anchored AC360 at 8PM ET, 9PM ET and 11PM ET. Here are the highlights. (There were a lot of good interviews on AC360 so if there's one you are interested seeing posted that isn't below, please leave your request in comments.)

6 comments:

Again, I was a few minutes late to 360, tuned in just as Anderson started talking to Ed Lavendera about the events in Ferguson MO last night. Yesterday I wondered if Anderson was going to interview Capt. Ron Johnson of the MIssouri Highway Patrol (the team mostly in charge of policing Ferguson right now) and today, here's the interview! It was taped but a pretty good Q&A session. Live and on the street Anderson spoke with Alderman Antonio French, a guy I know simply because of his internet/social media presence the last week, trying to let the world know what was going on in Ferguson.

360's second segment was the "both sides" time. Anderson inrerviewed Brown family attorney Benjamin Crump and then MO State Rep. Jeff Roorda who's also with the MO police officers association. While these men spoke they were on half the screen, the other half had footage of the Ferguson street. Sometimes this footage was live and sometimes it was from last night's protest. I wish it had been more clearly labelled "LAST NIGHT" or "8/19/14 2 AM". I'm in the Centrall Time Zone and I could easily tell which scenes were live and which scenes were not but I can imagine other viewers getting confused.

The third panel was the legal panel; discussions about the grand jury, the proceedings, the legalities and what might the future be both with and without an indictment. The panel was Mark Gereagos, a guy named Bruntrager and a woman who's name I didn't catch neither when Anderson said nor when if flashed on the screen for a nanosecond.

Anderson didn't get an interview with Gov. Nixon but he did get one with Spike Lee. Here's a guy who's not personally linked to the Brown family or with Ferguson but I appreciated seeing him because I like how he talks. Spike Lee has a point of view and he never minces words. My favorite comment from him was "Something smells bad in Ferguson and it's not just teargas."

I was out of the room and didn't get back until the last few seconds of the last segment of the 8 pm hour. I don't know if Anderson had a new story here, a new angle on Ferguson or if it was all a preview of the second hour. I hope it was a Bulletin or at least Anderson saying 'there's other big news going on, Iraq, Ukraine, elsewhere in the U.S., go to CNN.com to find out more'. There needs to be a few minutes for other news. On Wednesday's 360, will there be a segment on ISIS claming they beheaded photojournalist James Foley?

Just a little while ago I saw Joseph Gordon-Leavitt on Letterman. And I thought, 'hey, dye his hair silver and he could be Anderson in the movie'. You know, just in case anyone makes a movie about Anderson.

360 really does put together fine shows when Anderson's in the field and last night was no exception. All of the interviews and discussions were worth watching. Jeff Toobin is a smart man but I really appreciated and understood Areva Martin and Gloria Brown-Marshall's skepticism and reservations about how the grand jury proceedings will ultimately play out and whether justice will be served--the protests and unrest wouldn't be happening if people didn't feel they were unfairly targeted or not treated equally by the justice system. Anderson seemed taken aback when Spike Lee said there was a war on black men--it might seem like an outlandish or over the top statement to make, but for many African Americans, it's a fact of daily life--AC's incredulous reaction to Spike Lee's comment was a real-life example of the different perceptions of justice and injustice between blac89ks and whites.

Can you upload the video of the Van Jones / Charles Blow interview from around 11:10 last night? Charles Blow talked about how the only time so many black people are on TV is when there is a race related incident.

Fox News and Greta Van Susteren need to be reminded about W. and how he dressed "on the ranch," during his bike riding days.According to TVNewser she cricized President Obama for wearing casual attire, during his press conference concerning the beheading of James Foley.Really?It seems to me, if there was a beheading it should be our former Vice President's head, on a platter, for attacking the wrong country, and causing civil unrest in the entire Middle East.And W. always was dressed in casual attire when he was at Camp David.If you want to pick on our current President, it would help to get your facts straight.Fox News anchors have really short memories.